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The Joseph Smith Papyri
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The Joseph Smith Papyri
An example of what I am talking about is the recent discovery of the papyrus scrolls from which Joseph Smith was presumed to have translated the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. Modern scholars, looking at the scrolls, found nothing they considered to be similar to that book. I remarked at the time that such a finding didn't bother me in the least. God doesn't need a crib sheet in the form of a papyrus scroll to reveal Abraham's thoughts and words to Joseph Smith, with any degree of precision He considers necessary for His purposes. If the only function of the scrolls was to awaken the Prophet to the idea of receiving such inspiration, they would have fulfilled their purpose.
—Henry Eyring, Reflections of a Scientist, p. 46
Online source documents
The Joseph Smith Papyri: Source Quotes
Summary: A collection of source quotes related to the Joseph Smith Papyri
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Identity and nature of the papyrus in the Church's possession
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- Gospel Topics on LDS.org: "Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham"
- Question: What is the relationship of the Joseph Smith Papyri to the Book of Abraham?
- Question: What happened to the papyri after Joseph's death?
- Question: What do the Joseph Smith papyri fragments consist of?
- Question: Did Abraham himself pen the Joseph Smith Papyri?
- John Gee, "Book of Abraham, I Presume"
When did the Church disclose that the Joseph Smith Papyri were an Egyptian funerary text?
Summary: Critics often assert that the Church did not identify the Joseph Smith Papyri as an Egyptian funerary text until after Egyptologists examined them. They also claim that the Church is hiding or "covering up" the papyri's actual contents. Both assertions are incorrect. In fact, the Church ran a multi-part series with color pictures of the papyri in the Improvement Era (the predecessor to the Ensign) less than two months after they were received from the Metropolitan Museum. The series repeatedly affirmed that the recovered papyri contained Egyptian funerary materials and not the text of Book of Abraham.
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- Question: Was the Church forthright in identifying the rediscovered papyrus prior to their examination by non-LDS Egyptologists?
- Improvement Era (January 1968): "Often the funerary texts contained passages from the 'Book of the Dead,' a book that was to assist in the safe passage of the dead person into the spirit world"
- Question: What did the Church announce in 1968 when the Joseph Smith papyri fragments were discovered?
- Question: How long did the Church know about the papyri before they published information about them?
Why is the Book of Abraham text not on the papyri?
The facsimiles in the Book of Abraham
Summary: In the Book of Abraham, Joseph included three facsimiles of illustrations from the papyri, along with commentary about what the images and their individual parts represented. Some of Joseph's interpretations are similar to those of trained Egyptologists, but most are not. A number of criticisms relate to the three facsimiles associated with the Book of Abraham. It is noted that Joseph Smith's translation of the facsimiles does not agree with that provided by Egyptologists, and that some missing portions of the facsimiles were incorrectly restored before they were published.
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- Book of Abraham Facsimile 1: The "lion couch" scene
- An analysis of the Charles M. Larson restoration of Facsimile 1 compared against the original papyrus
- Book of Abraham Facsimile 2: The hypocephalus
- Book of Abraham Facsimile 3: The throne scene
- Restoration of missing portions of the facsimiles
Preservation of the Ancient Core of the Book of Abraham
Summary: The papyri from which the Book of Abraham date to between 300 BCE - 100 AD. Some have asked how a story about Abraham, who is claimed to live in the year 2000 BCE, can possibly retain an ancient core given the long amount of time it would have to survive scribal transmission. These articles explore these charges.
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Notes